Jeffrey Epstein 'suicide note' being hidden from public, former cellmate claims

Jeffrey Epstein wrote a suicide note which has been hidden from the public for nearly seven years, a former cellmate has claimed.

Nicholas Tartaglione, the cellmate of the convicted paedophile financier, said he discovered the note in July 2019.

According to documents and interviews, the note became involved in Tartaglione's own criminal case and was eventually sealed by a federal judge, meaning investigators looking in to Epstein's death did not have a potentially key piece of evidence.

Tartaglione claimed the note said something along the lines of: "What do you want me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye."

First reported by the New York Times, the US outlet said it had not been able to verify the note and a Justice Department spokeswoman said it had not seen it either.

But a coded timeline within the Epstein files suggests how the note became tangled up in Tartaglione's case.

Tartaglione, a former police officer, was placed in general population in the now-closed Metropolitan Correctional Centre, in Manhattan, New York City, in 2017.

Former cops face higher rates of violence in prison and in February 2018, he was attacked by another inmate, fracturing his eye socket bone.

He was then placed in the prison's Special Housing Unit, with Epstein placed in the same cell on July 6, 2019.

Just weeks later, Epstein was found semi-conscious in the cell with red marks on his neck and the notorious paedophile claimed the former police officer - now serving four life sentences for quadruple homicide - had attacked him.

Epstein told jail authorities he was not suicidal at the time but was moved to a different cell.

The week after the incident, the paedophile financier told Metropolitan Correctional Center officials he "never had any issues" with Tartaglione and felt safe being housed with him.

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Tartaglione said around the same time he found the suicide note, written on yellow paper from a legal pad, inside a graphic novel.

The 58-year-old inmate, who is currently pursuing an appeal, said he gave the note to his lawyers because it could have been useful if Epstein continued to claim he had been hurt by Tartaglione.

The timeline, revealed in Department of Justice files, states that four days after the July 23 incident, Tartaglione met with his lawyer "BB" - Bruce Barket - and made him aware of the note's existence.

It was then handed to another lawyer for the former police officer, John Wieder, and the two lawyers twice attempted to authenticate the note until July 30.

Epstein was then found dead in his cell on August 10, 2019.

At this point, the note was disclosed to the court, and between late 2019 and early 2020, it was reportedly authenticated.

Judge Kenneth Karas eventually ordered the note to be turned over to the court, where it seemingly has been sealed court documents until the present day.

The Justice Department said told the New York Times it had "underwent an exhaustive effort to collect all records in its possession", noting that this included documents for the Bureau of Prisons and the Office of the Inspector General.